In a typical digital photofinishing environment, films are developed, scanned and/or digitized to yield corresponding digital images which are then computer processed (such as for color balance, density, etc.) to yield final digital images. The final digital images may be printed by a laser or other digital printer, to provide customer service prints and/or uploaded to a remote hub for later consumer access and/or copied onto a diskette, optical disk (Photo CD) or the like.
Parameters which the photofinishing processor uses to control (a) the chemical processing (for example, development time in the case of development of a conventional film, and contact time and temperature in the case of development of a photothermographic film); (b) the scanner which scans the film (for example, illumination control, degree of specularity); and (c) the digital image processing of the digital images (for example, color balance), may preferentially have different settings which depend on film type or history. For example, images captured on film specifically designed for scanning may produce poor images if handled by the scanner or image processor in the same manner as conventional film images.
Photofinishing processes are typically loaded with the appropriate software and algorithms to control chemical processing, scanning and digital image processing at set up and delivery. Software upgrades are made available for loading by trained operators who much visit each and every site to reload and reset the photofinishing processor.
A drawback with the above procedure is that the software and algorithm collection can be quickly outdated as manufactures supply improved films with different properties, as improved digital manipulations become available and as consumers request new and different image choices and features which require changed image processing. While it is possible to manually update the software and algorithm collection by supplying such code to trained operators and having them reload the code, this manual intervention can be expensive and difficult to implement on a recurring basis. It is especially troublesome when the software and algorithms have a limited life and must be simultaneously enabled and disabled on a worldwide basis as is the case with a marketing promotion. The problem becomes nearly impossible to adequately address with highly geographically dispersed photofinishing as occurs with minilabs, with self-standing digital imaging labs in stores, with kiosk-like digital image processing stations and with the advent of home photofinishing opportunities.